California has adopted a target of 25,000 MW of floating offshore wind generation capacity. Of course, the cost is never mentioned, so here is a rough estimate to get the ball rolling.
The estimate begins with the huge Dominion Energy (DOM) fixed wind project currently under construction off of Virginia. Because the regulated utility DOM is its own developer, we get some public numbers, so here is a crude derivation. Big numbers are rounded for simplicity and ease of memory.
A. DOM says the 2,600 MW facility will cost $10 billion to build, which is about $4 billion/GW. But financing and profit bump that to $20 billion or $8 billion/GW, which is called the “revenue requirement” or what rate payers will pay. We will use that number.
B. DOM brags that they are immune to the big cost spike that has swept the industry because their contracts predate it. The costs have increased an estimated 65% industry-wide. That pushes the fixed bottom cost to $6.6 billion/GW construction and $13.2 billion/GW total.
C. Floating wind is generally estimated to be three times fixed wind because that huge floater costs a huge amount more than the single monopile a fixed tower sits on, plus there is a lot of mooring to the sea floor. Off California, the water is around a half mile deep.
This gives a construction cost of roughly $20 billion/GW and a total of $40 billion/GW. It could be a lot more as it has never been done.
D. Thus, 25 GW of floating capacity comes to $500 billion for construction and an incredible trillion dollars with financing. Note this does not include 20 years’ worth of expensive operation, maintenance, repair, replacement and decommissioning. That makes it well over a trillion.
This is California’s trillion-dollar floating wind fantasy. […]
— Read More: wattsupwiththat.com
